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July 25, 2012

Morgie Turns 2

Last weekend we celebrated our son Morgan's second birthday with a safari themed party. With some help from Adega, Pinterest, Amazon, and Party City we had quite an impressive spread. Thank you to all of our friends and neighbors that came out to celebrate, your presence was his greatest present.

Why a safari theme? This year we became FONZ members and have gone to the National Zoo at least once a week this summer. The FONZ membership is awesome because parking is free (it normally costs $22 to park for the day, so it quickly pays for itself), you are supporting the animals and the zoo program, and the kids get free animal crackers during each visit. Another reason for the theme, Morgan is learning Spanish and I found a fantastic supplemental video series that features Little Pim the Panda. He instantaneously fell in love with Little Pim. The Little Pim series offers several language options so I recommend it to anyone who wants to expose their kids to multiple languages. Now on to the party!

Let's start with the food. I usually....ok always... pride myself on making everything for our parties, but for this one Scott convinced me to take a break and outsource some of the production. I ordered a few delicious selections from Adega. If you live in Silver Spring, MD I highly recommend visiting this restaurant, especially on Saturday or Sunday for their wine and dine special. 1 appetizer, 2 entrees, and 1 select bottle of wine for $40! Last year I organized a surprise party for Scott after he was offered the position of Director of Undergraduate Studies for the University for Maryland's Psychology Department. The food was phenomenal and the customer service was excellent, especially from one of their on-site managers Ilecia, so I chose to use them again for this event. Here is a link to Adega's catering menu.

While perusing Pinterest for safari ideas, I came across a few impressive artistic culinary creations that I wanted to try to replicate. Pictured below is my work inspired from the following blogs. The first was panda cupcakes fromBakerella.

Due to having the party in our condo, I wanted to find a couple of items that would entertain a bunch of toddlers in a small space, and that Morgan could use in the future. I purchased a safari tent and water station on Amazon... both were a huge hit with the kids!

For desserts we had the panda cupcakes and these pretzel cookies. I had ordered a birthday cake fromCold Stone Creamery, but we had so much food that we didn't even get to it until the next day.